As the afternoon wound its way into evening, it was like watching a rare flower bloom and open up in the night air.
Finally, he felt she had put in enough time for one day. “Ready to go home?”
She had just finished talking to Brian, Andrew’s younger brother and the chief of detectives. Morgan’s question had caught her by surprise. “Is it time to leave already?” she asked him, stunned.
Morgan found the word “already” very telling. “No, not really. We don’t have to leave,” he assured her. “But I just thought that you’d want to. I mean, after having put in your time and all...” His voice trailed off, allowing her to fill in the implied meaning.
“You make it sound like penance,” she remarked. She didn’t see it that way at all and implied as much. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to stay a little longer.”
“Sure,” he agreed, doing his best not to let her see how pleased her decision had made him. While he couldn’t see anyone not warming up to his family, there was always the outside chance that harmony wouldn’t be the end result here. “We can definitely stay,” he assured her. “Uncle Andrew has had people who stayed for an entire weekend—and longer—after one of his parties. He has only one ground rule for his guests.”
“What’s that?” Krys asked.
“That the person or persons honestly enjoy themselves.”
Krys grinned. “Then I guess I meet the criterion. Maybe I shouldn’t admit this to you,” she confided, “but this is really like living out a fantasy for me.”
“You’re going to have to give me more than that,” Morgan said.
This wasn’t something she talked about often, or for that matter, at all. But she had been the one to start this, so she said, “After my mother ran off, my dad, sister and I moved around a lot when I was a kid. Looking back on it now, I think the reason we did was that my father was trying to find my mother without actually admitting as much to us. I think he didn’t want to disappoint us if he couldn’t locate her—which, as it turned out, he didn’t.
“Because we moved around so much, Nik and I were always on the outside looking in when it came to school. This,” she nodded around at her surroundings, “was the way I always imagined it would be like to belong to a large, loving family.” She smiled at him, her eyes twinkling. “Thanks for letting me live out my fantasy for the space of a night.”
He wanted to tell her that the fantasy didn’t have to end tonight, or for that matter, soon, but he didn’t want to risk scaring Krys off. A woman who had been as independent as Krys had been for as long as she had been could very well balk at having someone rein her in or appear to give her boundaries, even if he did it for the best of reasons. She might feel that she had to insist on being free. He definitely didn’t want her feeling that she had to back off.
But Morgan really wanted her to get used to having these boundaries around her. So for now he said nothing. He only savored the small victories he had made, savored the tiny steps forward that he had managed to gain.
And he promised himself that there would be more coming soon.
As it turned out, Morgan and Krys wound up being very close to the last people to leave the family gathering that night.
Krys’s eyes were all but closing by the time they said their goodbyes and made their way to the front door.
Even so, she wouldn’t just slip away the way Morgan had suggested when he saw how her eyes were drooping. Krys wanted to be sure to take proper leave of the people who had thrown this gathering as well as the ones who were still left in attendance.
“I can’t thank you enough for inviting me, Mr. Cavanaugh.”
“Oh please,” Andrew told her, “Call me Chief. My wife does,” he added with a mischievous wink.
Standing beside her husband as she did at the end of each of these gatherings, Rose Cavanaugh slipped her arm around her husband’s waist.
“You wish,” she said with an old, familiar laugh. “You can call him Chief, or Uncle Andrew, the way everyone else here does. But you can’t call him ‘honey,’” she told Krys. “That label belongs strictly just to me.”
“As do I,” Andrew assured Rose, pressing a kiss to his wife’s temple.
The simple, sweet gesture spoke volumes, Krys thought.
Andrew turned toward Krys. “And thank you for coming and for putting up with all of us. I know, despite everything, that it couldn’t have been easy for you, seeing what you’re going through.”
Krys nodded, acknowledging his words. She should have guessed he would know all about the fact that she was being stalked as well as how the likeliest candidate had just been eliminated.
“Morgan told me that you have your finger on the pulse of everything that goes on in Aurora.”
“Morgan exaggerates,” Andrew told her. “But I am very protective of my family,” he readily admitted. Then, in case there was any lingering doubt in her mind, the patriarch added, “And you are part of the family.” Andrew turned toward Morgan and shook his nephew’s hand heartily, bidding the young man goodbye. “Now see that you get home safely.”
Andrew’s words were directed toward both of them.
Chapter 21
Feeling beyond exhausted, Krys was really relieved to see her house coming into view some twenty minutes later.
“You know,” she said as she breathed a major sigh of relief, “I really like your family.”
“Yeah, I think they wound up tolerating you pretty well, too,” Morgan deadpanned, pulling his car into her driveway.
“Very funny,” she answered. Growing serious, Krys said honestly,
